Do pesticides cause hyperactivity?

A study just released in the journal Pediatricssuggests that children’s exposure to the low levels of pesticides found on non-organic produce increases their chances of having attention deficit hyperactivity disorder — or ADHD, for those of you who spaced out after the second syllable.

dragon_fang / Shutterstock

The study looked specifically at organophosphates — which kill pests by targeting their nervous systems — and analyzed levels of the commercial pesticides in the urine of more than 1,000 children aged 8 to 15. The group with the highest levels of pesticides had a 55 percent higher chance of having ADHD than those with the lowest levels.

The perversity of our system of more or less free reign for chemicals — just a few hundred of the nearly 80,000 of chemicals in the U.S. marketplace have been tested for safety, although pesticides are subject to more scrutiny — requires these broad studies of likelihood. But such tests don’t nail down causality, meaning that they still don’t result in stricter controls on the chemicals in question. A pesticide industry group has called the Pediatrics study inconclusive.

According to a 2008 report from the U.S. Department of Agriculture that the study cited, 28 percent of frozen blueberries, 20 percent of celery, and 25 percent of strawberries contained traces of one type of organophosphate. Other types of organophosphates were found in 27 percent of green beans, 17 percent of peaches, and 8 percent of broccoli.